Is Bartering the Answer for You?

Laura is a web designer who needed a new resume. I needed to move and redesign my blog. Neither of us wanted to spend money so we had been fudging around on our own doing the best we could - until we found each other and made a barter agreement.

Laura would redesign and move my blog, and in exchange I would write her resume, job search letters and LinkedIn profile.

The deal worked out better than I had hoped. My new blog design is beautiful (check it out!) and Laura's thrilled with the work I did for her. As we were arranging this deal, I saw a piece on one of the morning news shows about a marked increase in bartering as the economy continues to struggle, and though 'Ah! I must blog that! Lots of people could probably do this in exchange for job search help.'

I found Laura by posting the offer on my blog. I could also have used Twitter to put out the word that I was looking. But if you don't have a blog or a Twitter account, there are websites devoted to arranging barters.

Barterquest and Peopletradingservices.com are two such sites. Barterquest allows you to barter products and services while Peopletradingservices is exactly what its name says it is. If you google 'barter services' you'll find other options too.

If money is tight, bartering is one way you may be able to find career help. But over and above that, it's also an excellent way to build experience for those just starting out, or anyone looking to make a career change.

Think about it - if you want to prove yourself in a new field, what better way than to secure some freelance projects and show what you can do? You will have extra experience to add to your resume and you'll probably also garner testimonials from happy clients. (The first thing I did after the project was completed was to leave a glowing review on Laura's LinkedIn page and I'm now writing about her here and sending everyone to look at her online portfolio. Really - go look at it - she's very talented!).

Finally, if you are unemployed, bartering services will mean there is no gap on your resume - you can write about this period as 'consulting' and you will have meaty projects to discuss.

So if you have some spare time and skills that someone else would find valuable, consider bartering as a way to get what you need, expand your skills, or build strong stories for your resume.

Comments

[Dennis Martinez]

Hi Louise,

I'm one of the developers at BarterQuest. Thanks for mentioning our site!

One thing I wanted to mention is that while we currently allow our users to barter between goods and services (and not just exclusively between them), we are also planning to allow users to trade for real estate as well. So, for example, if you have your service posted on our site, you can trade it for a few days at the vacation home of someone who needs your service! We hope this would greatly benefit users like Laura and yourself who can offer their expert services for something other than another service.

Again, thanks for the mention. We hope you and others will find it very useful.